These are the rules if you want to hunt frogs legally in the state of Ohio

A pastime that doesn’t produce much buzz on X, Facebook, Fox or even MSNBC is about to get mentioned here, where newsworthiness matters more than exalted trivia.

Let’s put on public record, then, that Ohio’s frog season, an opportunity for a sort of nightly bank withdrawal, begins at 6 p.m. sharp on Friday and continues through April 30, 2025.

As many as 15 bullfrogs and/or green frogs may be taken daily. Hunters of both are required to hold a state fishing license unless they are young enough (under 16) not to be required.

Coincidentally, fishers of any age can do so without a license June 15-16, which covers the opening weekend of frog hunting.

The frog season doesn’t generally last as long as regulations permit. In January, for example, most frogs and their amphibious kin have retreated from the deadly cold into the dozing, survivable underworld.

The short, closed season from May until mid-June annually gives frogs time to make tadpoles. Bullfrog tadpoles, the state’s largest species, can take a few years to become air-breathing bellowers.

Frog croaking persists throughout the warm season, partially because the males continue to think about mating and partly as a caution to other males to steer clear or risk combat.

The sight of frogs mating or fighting is something to behold, although it’s sometimes hard for human amateurs to tell the difference. Experts assure laypersons that frogs know which is which.

Whatever that croaking is meant to accomplish after the primary mating season, it does alert pursuers to a frog's whereabouts. While calling in potential predators might not seem such a competitive advantage, frogs have been around for 260 million years, so they must be doing something right.

The bullfrog making all that noise, on the other hand, isn’t going to be older than 10 years. An adult bullfrog can weigh a little bit more than a pound.

And while bullfrogs are the largest native frog in North America, they tend to grow biggest in the warmer climes.

Frogs provide meals for many creatures: winged, finned, furred. Its predators include the bald, the bearded and sundry snuff-using, beer-sipping combinations thereof.

Frog hunting is often done with a gig, a sort of mini-pronged pitchfork attached to a long pole used to jab at a sitting frog.

Gigging for frogs is probably practiced more in many southern states than in Ohio, where croakers might not be as enormous but where the legs are as tasty as those from any Mississippi bog frog.

The procurement process can be messy.

The gigger in many cases operates from a shallow-bottomed, lightweight boat that carries a paddling buddy who can also function as a beverage dispenser. Carrying a cooler full of ice helps preserve the frog corpses which hopefully will pile up as the beverage cans find their use and become depleted, leaving room to spare.

A lot of kids have killed a lot of frogs using BB guns, but shooting isn’t legal except with archery equipment.

Nor is it legal to hunt frogs using a foothold or body-gripping trap, a chemical, an explosive or smoke. Also forbidden is the use of what the state refers to as "deleterious or stupefying substances."

Widely accepted is that frog legs coated in a beer batter generate happy vibes, though frogs disagree.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Regulations regarding the soon-to-begin frog hunting season in Ohio